A giant asteroid bigger than any building on Earth will pass by our planet on Tuesday, NASA has said.

The asteroid, called 7482 (1994 PC1), measures more than a kilometre in width, at 1,052m (3,451ft).

It is taller than the world’s tallest building Burj Khalifi in Dubai, which is 830m (2,723ft) high.

Near-Earth #asteroid 1994 PC1 (~1 km wide) is very well known and has been studied for decades by our #PlanetaryDefense experts. Rest assured, 1994 PC1 will safely fly past our planet 1.2 million miles away next Tues., Jan. 18.

Track it yourself here: https://t.co/JMAPWiirZh pic.twitter.com/35pgUb1anq

NASA’s Asteroid Watch Twitter account assured its followers that the asteroid does not pose a threat to Earth.

It tweeted on 12 January that the asteroid is “very well known and has been studied for decades by our #PlanetaryDefense experts”.

It added that “1994 PC1 will safely fly past our planet 1.2 million miles away next Tuesday”.

The distance equates to five times the moon’s distance from Earth.

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The rocky object was discovered in 1994 by Robert McNaught at the Siding Spring Observatory in Australia.

NASA’s Planetary Defence Co-ordination Office watches the skies to find, track, and monitor near-Earth objects.

To prevent harm from future asteroids, NASA is trialling its double asteroid redirection test (Dart) programme.

The mission aims to prove a spacecraft can independently navigate to a target asteroid and collide with it, thus smashing it off course.

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